


Connections

by ezzzra



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, Internet Friends, Internet friends to lovers, Romance, Soft Bucky, meet cute kinda, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-19 05:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezzzra/pseuds/ezzzra
Summary: When Bucky Barnes looks to the internet to catch up on everything he’s missed while being The Winter Soldier, he learns the last thing he ever expected to. Love. Is that cheesy? Yeah, but this fic will BE cheesy. It’s full of soft Bucky finding his way through the 21st century as a man, a friend, a lover and not a soldier.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I wrote this fic for my tumblr which is puppy-barnes.tumblr.com and that’s where you can find updates first and other fics and blurbs I’m going to write about Marvel and Bucky but here’s Connections!

Bucky never intended for it to get this far, never even thought it would; but here he was, standing uncomfortably at an airport waiting for you to get off the plane. He awkwardly held a poster with your name and a picture of a puppy on it at his side with his flesh hand as he ran his metal hand through his hair anxiously. Surprisingly, this was the most nervous he had ever been and he couldn’t stop beating himself up for that. So what if he had never met you before and your entire friendship was at stake because what if you met him and he was scary, or uncomfortable, and decided not to be his friend anymore? He had killed people. Hell, he had gone into war, but now he was so unsure of himself it was terrifying. This was such intense fear; and he wished he could just talk to you about it. 

It had all started around five months ago when he first moved into the Avengers compound. Bucky found himself constantly frustrated at not being able to understand what was going on. No one blamed him, other than himself. He had just lived the last chunk of his life getting his mind and memory constantly wiped so that he could kill people. It’s no wonder he didn’t understand how the world worked now; and everyone was patient with him, especially Steve, who went through the same thing after coming out of the ice. The person who tried the most was Peter, who would constantly be trying to explain memes to Bucky, no matter how many times Sam would say that it didn’t matter if Bucky knew what ‘yeet’ meant if he didn’t understand the ‘70’s. It lead to arguments that made Bucky anxious and he was barely understanding what Peter was trying to tell him anyways, so he quit trying to understand, deciding to figure it out on his own. Which is how he met you. Bucky would sit in his room with the lights off for hours, just browsing through the internet, researching and learning about everything he had missed. You moderated one of the many websites Bucky would frequently browse and he didn’t realize a real person would answer his submitted questions, so he submitted every single one he had in hopes of answers. You then private messaged him instead of posting them all, and slowly explained everything to him, repeating anything, explaining anything, no matter how small or trivial or how much someone might have thought he should have already known. While embarrassed at first that now someone other than the Avengers knew of his lack of knowledge about the current world, he was so thankful for your patience and willingness to spend hours back and forth. After a month of talking, you shared emails because Bucky was yet to fully understand instant messaging. Later, you taught him about Skype and that’s how you’d began to communicate. This lead to voice calls as he got more comfortable talking to you, and you’d talk him through the ‘60’s and music and disco, and he would just sit in the dark with headphones in and eyes closed, soaking up both the information and the sound of your voice. You were one of the few people who he felt completely comfortable around, and as you became friends, he told you bits and pieces and finally his entire story. You knew more than even Steve did, since Bucky tried to protect him by not telling him gruesome details of his torture. Leading up to one day, Bucky was reading and went to call you, accidentally video chatting you instead. You answered without any sort of question even though you had never seen his face nor him yours.   
“Hey, Buck, what am I teaching you today?” You had asked, watching as his eyes flicked over the words on the page of the book he was currently reading. He got to the end of a sentence, cleared his throat and looked up, then froze. Bucky stared at your face on his screen as you smiled at his expression, watched as it slowly fell into a frown when he didn’t speak, then as your lips moved to say his name even though he couldn’t even hear it.  
“Buck? Bucky? Are you okay? James?” You called. At his real name, he shook his head smiled, and finally responded.   
“Y/N, hey, hi, uh, yeah, today’s the ‘90’s.. I, uh, think. Yeah, it is.” Bucky sputtered, his cheeks heated up like they hadn’t done in years. After that, video calls were all you did, and as you got him caught up onto everything that had happened, the conversations shifted. If asked who his best friend was, Bucky never hesitated- Steve. But a couple months into meeting you, it was quickly followed by Y/N. Not to mention that every single person in the Avengers compound knew who you were, Bucky had tried to keep it a secret. He wanted to keep you to himself, but then it slipped out one day. Bucky was standing in the kitchen pouring coffee into a mug about to head back to his room when he heard Clint and Steve walking in the front door, talking about the importance of letting immigrants into the country, and that the argument of safety based on the attacks of 9/11 was bullshit. Bucky grabbed his mug, chimed in to their conversation casually then started back towards his room to call you.  
“Bucky, when did you learn that?” Steve questioned, confused by not only Bucky’s new knowledge, but the confidence with which he was talking about these things.   
“Oh, Y/N taught me that weeks ago.” Bucky countered without thinking, then realized he had mentioned your name and froze in place as Clint tsked dramatically.   
“Have you met someone Buck?” Clint asked, stepping forward and batting his eyelashes dramatically to tease the man.  
“‘S’not a big deal, they’ve been teaching me about everything I missed, and now we’re friends.” Bucky mumbled, shifting on his feet uncomfortably.  
“When? You never leave the building! You just spend all of your time in your room on you-- Oh my god, you met them online, didn’t you?” At this revelation, Steve gasped and Bucky silently cursed Clint for putting two and two together. Instead of standing around to defend himself, Bucky just awkwardly nodded then backed away from them and stalked back to his room to call you and tell you about what happened.   
“Bucky, listen, relax. Who cares if they know? I’m not embarrassed by this, and unless you are, I don’t think it matters. It certainly doesn’t change anything.” You had mentioned the embarrassment thing casually, but honestly, it was more because you wanted to make sure it wasn’t true. Despite daily calls, you couldn’t help the nagging feeling that Bucky was too good for you, or didn’t consider you a friend as much as a resource. He immediately frowned at your words, at this point knowing you well enough to understand what you really meant, despite always comforting you and telling you that you were in fact his friend.   
“Listen,” Now it was his turn to help you relax. “I’m not embarrassed by this. Well, not by you, my lack of understanding is another thing. Anyways, it’s not that I didn’t want them to know about you as much as I knew that if I told them they’d ask about you and want to talk to you and somehow I felt like I could just keep you to myself. My own little prize that I didn’t have to share with anyone.”   
After that, any time Bucky left his room, he fielded questions about you. Yes you lived in the US, yes he planned on meeting you sometime, yes you knew who he was, and of course that meant you knew who all of them were. As the weeks went on, questions died down and then you were just brought up casually into conversation, as Bucky would mention you. It even got to the point where Tony was complaining that all Bucky did was talk about you but wasn’t backing his words up by meeting you. He even offered to buy the ticket for you to come just if it would shut Bucky up finally. As your friendship shifted even more, you became even closer. Bucky would tell you about his days, about training with Steve, about helping Peter flirt with girls at his school, about cooking with Wanda. In turn you would tell him about your job, which was awful and boring, selling insurance, or about your family, especially family drama; your sister was currently in jail for the third time this year but your parents were acting like it wasn’t happening. You would tell him about that awful guy at work that would always flirt with you and ask you on dates, and despite how many times you said no, the next day was always the same thing. Bucky never realized how much he would smile while on the phone with you until you’d hang up to go to work or sleep and his face would fall back into its resting position and the muscles would ache a little bit. He felt like he could sit and listen to you talk for the rest of his life and die a happy man with no complaints, and he didn’t even realize he was falling in love with you yet. A month ago when he worked up the courage to ask you to come to the compound and meet him, you paused and told him that of course you’d come, you just needed to save up for the flight. To this, he argued that Tony would pay for the ticket and you laughed so loud he thought his heart would burst and agreed. The ticket was booked for three weeks out and Bucky started a countdown app on his phone he was so excited. With a week left until the flight, you started to get excited and Bucky kept telling you stories about what was near the compound and all the places he was excited to take you. The day before you flew out Bucky went through a checklist, making sure you had everything you needed.   
“Toothbrush?”  
“Check!”  
“Okay I’ve got one. Ready? Toothpaste?”  
“Yes! Check!” You giggled and he kept going through the list with you, joking and teasing the entire time. It was like breathing talking to Bucky, you had never met anyone who you felt so comfortable with and you vowed to yourself that on this trip you’d tell him that you loved him. Even if he didn’t take it well, he deserved to know that he didn’t leave everything behind in the ‘40’s, love was still a thing. You could barely breathe when you thought about his reaction, so worried he would be uncomfortable and you’d lose the closest friend you had. You called him from the airport wifi on your phone, letting him know that the plane was on time and you should be landing in three and a half hours. Before hanging up you said the words that made his heart soar, but his stomach plummet.   
“Hey Buck, they’re boarding. I’ll see you soon, love you.”

Which is how Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, past secret HYDRA assassin, and Avenger, was standing at the airport waiting to meet who was certainly unbeknownst to him the love of his life, anxiety racking his body. He shifted back and forth from one foot to the other and considered taking his phone out and texting Steve while he waited.   
‘Flight 247 is now unloading, please meet all passengers in the third lobby and luggage at luggage distributer 6.’ Bucky jolted and began holding the sign up as passengers began walking towards the lobby, sometimes in twos or threes laughing and talking about the flight and plans. And then, as you walked around the corner, he felt the breath get knocked out of him. Finally.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im super depressed so it might be a hot minute before anothet update im sorry also bucky is so soft id die for him

You met his eyes with your own and your entire face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. You can’t remember ever feeling this much joy in one moment, and upon looking up and seeing the poster he held; you threw your head back laughing as you walked. You could see the nerves plastered across his face and on a whim decided to run to him. You let go of your suitcase feet from him and jumped up into his arms as they wrapped tightly around you, dropping the poster he held, your legs held him to you and you pressed your face into the crook between his neck and shoulder.  
“Y/N!” Bucky exclaimed and in that moment he swore his face felt like it would split wide open from smiling harder than he ever had before. Holding you for another moment, and you finally pulled back to slide down off of him sooner than he would have liked.  
“Hey Buck,” you said softly and he could feel his cheeks heat up at the sound of his name. “You look good, d’ya dress up just for me?”  
Now you were teasing him, seeing as what we was wearing was just jeans and a black tee but he chuckled anyway, leaning over to pick up the poster and grab the handle to your suitcase for you.  
“Do you have any other luggage you need to go get?” Bucky asked thoughtfully, and you shook your head before responding.  
“Nope, I’m all yours.” There went another blush creeping up Bucky’s face and you vowed to yourself to keep making that happen because in those moments were his cheeks were softly flushed and his hair hung down at the sides of his face he looked so damn pretty. His hands full with the poster and your bag he mentally cursed himself for not having a free hand to hold yours, but nonetheless started to lead you outside, going on about what you guys were gonna do while you were there.  
“So of course first I’ll take you to the tower so you can leave all your stuff in your room- well actually it was Vision’s room, but he moved to another room while you’re here so you can uh.. be right next to me.” Bucky paused, and looked thoughtful for a moment as he stared into the distance of the parking lot to the airport. “Anyways, we have reservations for dinner tonight at that place I’ve told you about, The Rose, it’s kinda fancy but you don’t have to dress up or anything it’s just me. It’s not for like two hours so you have time to get settled, and meet everyone.” As he rambled on you walked through the packed parking lot and as he finally finished his rambling as you walked up to his car and he looked over at you. You stood a couple feet behind him and smiled wider than he had ever seen before your eyes crinkled up, and your dimples in your cheeks so deep he swore he could swim in them.  
”Does that sound alright?” he whispered and you could feel your heart swell ten times at the shy look on his face. Sometimes Bucky reminded you of a child, such sweet innocence, there was no way to feign it.   
“Buck honey, relax. This all sounds perfect. Anything we could do, as long as I’m with you, it’s perfect,” he nodded gently to himself smiling at the ground then unlocked the car and loaded your suitcase into the back and motioned for you to get into the passenger seat.  
The ride to the compound was quiet, Bucky hummed softly to himself and you awkwardly typed slowly on your phone; he kept shifting his hands on the wheel desperate to touch you, even innocently, especially innocently. You kept flickering your eyes to his hands, his arms, his face studying his features trying to memorize the way he would flick his eyebrows high up on his face when people drove recklessly. Hoping you could always remember the way he would frown at things left on the side of the road, anything from trash to shoes, or even roadkill. Eventually he looked over at you to find you staring and giggled to himself, actually giggled, then reached out to take your hand. His fingers were rough, you could feel the calluses of years of hard work yet the skin of the back of his hand was so soft, like it had never seen the light or even remotely anything near the hard work that was evident in his body.   
“Are you nervous?” You questioned, his other hand still fidgeting on the wheel and you watched it carefully. Bucky smiled knowing he was probably being obvious, but also that it felt nice to have someone know how he felt anyways.  
“Y-,” clearing his throat he tried again. Suddenly it was like a damn overflowed and he was telling you everything. “Yeah, I just want this to be special for you. Like I’ve been looking forward to this for months and there’s nothing that could make this not special for me, but I wanna make sure you have a good time. I want you to like them and I want them to like you and it’s all a little overwhelming I guess.”  
You squeezed his hand tightly and rubbed your thumb in circles on the back of his hand to try and relax him. “Bucky, Bucky, Buck, baby,” the pet names had started more recently within the last two months and every time you used any of them he felt his insides melt into a puddle of affection and care.”Listen, I told you. I’m so excited to be here, to be with you! We could sit in a dark basement and eat nothing but plain rice and talk shit about celebrities and it would be one of the greatest weeks of my life, because Buck. I don’t know how to explain to you that I’m just as excited for this you are my best friend, and listen, of course I’m gonna like them all. I’ve been texting Steve for weeks, and Sam steals his phone a lot. You don’t need to worry, just relax, enjoy this time.”   
As you rambled on trying to comfort the man who sat beside you, you didn’t even realize that you were pulling into the Avengers compound and as you finished you looked up and gasped. It was huge. Bucky grinned at your reaction and pulled around in front letting you out and the front door to the building opened and Steve charged at you, you were barely out of the seat when he grabbed you and gripped you so tight it hurt. Bucky chuckled watching you bat at Steve to put you down and when your feet touched the ground again Bucky was right behind you putting his hand on your shoulder.   
“So there’s Stevie,” he offered and you turned to him face red from giggling and sighed happily.  
“Where’s Y/N?” Sam shouted as he lead the group of the rest of the Avengers outside. Sam, Clint, Tony, Natasha, Bruce, Wanda, Vision, Rhodey, and Peter all filed out of the building and looked around, spotting you between Steve and Bucky. Somehow they all lined up with minimal pushing and arguing to all meet you basically one by one, you felt like a celebrity as they each walked up and introduced themselves and gave you a hug, or in visions case just introduced himself and shook your hand. They were all so friendly and you couldn’t believe they all cared so much about just meeting you, and the whole time you met and introduced and hugged you kept peeking over at Bucky as he just watched everyone react to you.   
“Alright, alright let’s let Y/N get inside and relax okay, they’re gonna be here for like a week and a half everyone fall back.” Tony called out, patting Bucky on the back gently. Clint grumbled something about how it wasn’t fair that Bucky got to monopolize you and Natasha smacked his arm playfully and told him to shut up and they all trailed back inside as you followed, Bucky right behind you.   
“So this is the main room, living room I guess, there’s the kitchen. The gym is downstairs and takes up basically the whole floor, and there’s a pool out back through that door, and Tony and Bruce’s lab are upstairs.” Bucky pointed at things with his free hand, the other one still pulling your suitcase behind him as he showed you around. It all suddenly became real, that here you were in the Avengers fucking compound with Bucky fucking Barnes and you could feel your heart start to race. It was nerve wracking and all you wanted to do was sit down and take a deep breath, maybe splash some water on your face.   
“This is my room, and this is yours.” Bucky pointed to his door that had weird posters plastered all over it and then a blank door that led to ‘your’ room.   
You reached for your suitcase and brushed hands with him momentarily but this time it was you who blushed at the contact, and you stuttered awkwardly all sense of cool you had moments ago flying out the window.   
“Oh! Sorry- my bad, I’m sorry, here I can take this. I’m just gonna unpack a little and change. These clothes smell like a cramped airplane that’s been farted in a few too many times,” you joked trying to play off the heat in your cheeks and the way you bit your lip when you were done speaking.  
“Of course,” he smiled sincerely, let go of your suitcase and leant in to press his lips to your forehead without thinking and he turned to talk to his room leaving you with you jaw on the floor standing in the hallway.   
Bucky Barnes had just kissed you.  
Your head reeling from the soft kiss you could somehow still feel on your skin you walked into the room you would be staying in for the next week and half and slowly stripped down. You couldn’t get him out of your mind even as you stepped into the shower that was luckily really easy to get working. All you could think about was, how soft his lips were, how soft his hands were and how soft you knew his hair would be if you ever got the chance to run your hands through the long chocolate locks you could die happy. Getting out of the shower you stopped to look at yourself in the mirror as you brushed through your hair, and mentally chastised yourself for looking so dopey and lovey.   
Meanwhile Bucky was in his room texting Steve as he paced around waiting for you to get out of the shower he heard start and come see him.  
‘Steve. I think I messed things up already.’  
‘Oh god Buck what’d you do? They’ve been here like an hour!’  
‘I kinda kissed them. Just like on the head, but oh god Steve I walked off so fast. I couldn’t even wait around to see their reaction. I just made this so awkward didn’t I? They’re gonna get on the next flight back aren’t they?’  
‘LMAO TIN BOY YOU’RE REALLY SCARED OF A KISS?!’  
‘Sorry, Sam took my phone. I don’t think that’s that bad Bucky, honestly you think they would have flown across the country to see you if they didn’t like you? Just relax and go on your dinner.’  
Bucky groaned and started to respond when there was a quick knock on his door and you opened the door and called in.   
“Guess who?” You sounded so playful and excited he could feel every ounce of anxiety melt away from his entire body as he put his phone back in his pocket and hummed loudly.  
“Hmm, Stevie is that you?” Giggling you busted the door open and there you stood wearing the cutest sundress Bucky had ever seen in his life and his eyes went wide as they traveled up to your face. You held your hands up in a fake gun and were smirking deviously at him, it was without a doubt one of the most adorable things ever.  
“It’s the police, put your hands up! You’re under arrest for being too cute! Your punishment? Dinner.” You walked into his room with a strut like an old western cop walking into the saloon and it took every bit of willpower Bucky had not to lose it and laugh right then and there.  
Bucky rolled his eyes so hard it almost hurt and with a joke sigh put his hands up dramatically. “I knew I’d get caught one day. Never thought it’d be so soon.”  
“Sorry I took so long to get ready. I had to look good for our first night out though,”   
“I hope you worked up an appetite getting ready then,” he patted his pockets to make sure he had his wallet and keys then motioned to leave and you smiled and skipped ahead of him down the hallway.  
“Oh boy did I,” you called behind you then looked back to see him following far behind. “C’moooon Bucky let’s go!”


End file.
